Cold Cure
By BRIAN BEHAN
T AM addicted to swimming; I find it cheaper 'than drink and more relaxing. ,It has long been my delight to go over to our local pool to swim and cavort in the early quiet of a summer morn- ing, when the sun sends lances of light darting through the wind-rippled water.
I also recommend a cold plunge as the very best cure for the dog-ridden hangovers. I should know; I once used it to very good effect.
One Christmas Eve I had a visit from an old friend whom I had not 'seen since I left Ireland. We had shared a mutual dislike of each other, but that was years ago, so in view of the time that was in it I welcomed him in. I was to regret it, for after a while he started to let the sly digs fly. Apparently he was tormented by my failure to live up to his estimation of me as the Irish Lenin. At least, that uis what he said. Really he was simply full of spite •and villainy. I could see my evening was in ruins, so to get back at him I asked why he had brought no drink to celebrate the Christmas and our reunion. A fat, twisted-lipped fellow, he immediately jumped up and went off to get some. I was hoping he'd get run over or lose his way, but no, back he came with a large, long bottle of whiskey with an old whiskery-faced gentleman beaming out from the label. I at once began to lower the stuff in greedy glassfuls. 1 did this partly from spite, but mostly from meanness. I can never resist gorging myself on anything free, be it booze, food or just fresh air. As the evening wore on, we examined our respective rottenness, until finally we stood outside my prefab reviling each other.
Alas, his was the last laugh, for the next day his whiskey struck me down; I could neither sit nor stand nor in any way function as a normal human being. My family, anxious to begin the Christmas merriment, took most unkindly to my moaning and groaning like a wounded ele- phant. Ruthlessly they demanded that I make myself fit or suffer deep and prolonged nagging. As I have three females to contend with, I de- cided I would suffer less if I went and took a plunge in the open-air pool.
In the summer I had resolved to become an all-the-year-round swimmer. I have always mar- velled at the men, stringy and fat, who jump into the icy Serpentine with gay abandon, and longed to be able to say off-handedly, 'Oh, yes, I swim all the year round.' I imagined myself basking in the looks of admiration and awe, and already felt vastly superior to all the sluggards who neglect clean, bodily exercise. But by November I shrank from getting into the dark scudding water which now lay strangely secret and sinister, with little islands of dead leaves floating on it.
Now, walking through the snow park, I felt I must be insane and prayed that the pool would be closed. It was the year of the big freeze when the cold was snatching the very birds from the sky, shrinking their soft bodies into hard little stones. To my dismay, the pool was open, the local swimming club was in possession and one of their members was swimming about in the ice-free end like a merry tadpole on a summer's day. Others were crowded in the little but quaffing after-swim hot rum. A large, ex- boxer type called out, 'Good to see you! After you've been in, come and join the boys and girls for a drink.' Boys and girls! They were all there.
Old young men trying to hold their paunches in, beefy types shoving out their muscles like any celluloid sex kitten. Gym-mistressy mums mar- shalling their unfortunate, brainwashed kids with strident whistles and little weedy men dying of cold in their track suits but determined to be gay about it. Across the pool some of them were posing for photographs and a bikini-clad beauty beckoned me into the group, so I trudged my way round, the snow stinging and stabbing at my poor feet. The photographer kept snapping away while I sank deeper and deeper into the snow. By now my body was incapable of movement, but my mind was working overtime. With the photos to hand around amongst my doubting friends, I need not get into the water at all, or perhaps I should just leave them lying around or let them fall out of my wallet.
The group broke up at last and, arching her back, the lovely girl jack-knifed half-way across the pool to be joined by some of the other idiots in catcalling me to join them. Madly, I determined to get back to the changing room, but a pair of brawny arms caught me round the middle and started heaving me to the edge. I fought like a madman to get free, raising one foot after the other like a man mushing in an Arctic nightmare, but before I knew it I was crashing into the icy depths. Cold? I was para- lysed, filleted! I couldn't breathe and for what seemed like hours I couldn't move my arms to make the few strokes back to the side. A hand reached out to me and a voice cried, 'Well done.
You are now a member of the Icicles Club.' I must confess I gave vent to some of the filthiest language ever uttered on a Christmas morn. It must have been the shortest membership ever known. Half-leaning, half-crouching, I made my way home against a bitter, breath-cutting wind. I didn't cheer up till I caught sight of my face in a shop-window. I was a deep beetroot colour. At least I had no need . of the photos I had forgotten to order. I smirked when I thought of the sensation I would cause. To get the full effect, I rang the bell and then threw the door open
with a loud `Tara!"Oh, there you are, darling,' said my wife. 'You're just in time to peel the spuds.'
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